NCAA Basketball: Toppin tightens grip on National Player of the Year race
By Brian Rauf
Stats: 21.4 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 2.3 apg
Speaking of Myles Powell, he still gets the slight edge over Howard for now given Seton Hall’s team success and his overall body of work throughout the season. That said, Powell is going in the wrong direction thanks to a slump that has caused him to have his two worst games of the year in the past two weeks.
The senior only scored nine points in a loss to Xavier on Feb. 1 – which, if you recall, dropped him from the top spot last – and only scored 12 points in Seton Hall’s last outing, a loss to Creighton. Powell was a combined 6/30 from the field in those two games, including 2/20 from three.
Not great, right? Well, between those outings, Powell put up 34 points against Georgetown and 19 against Villanova, both of which resulted in road wins for the Pirates.
In a year with so much inconsistency and struggles on the road by otherwise good teams, Powell’s dominance away from the Prudential Center has been fantastic.
This is quite a stat on Seton Hall's Myles Powell @Myles_MBP_23. In six Big East road games, he's averaging 27 points per game. Most telling: All wins. #shbb
— Zach Braziller (@NYPost_Brazille) February 10, 2020
That keeps him in the top three right now, but Powell has to break out of this slump soon if he wants to return to the forefront of this race. A road game against Butler on Wednesday will do wonders for his candidacy one way or the other.